Looking Up: Readers send reports of fireballs

By Peter Becker More Content Now

Friday

Nov 17, 2017 at 12:37 PMNov 17, 2017 at 12:37 PM

The last column of Looking Up described fireballs, unusually brilliant meteors sometimes still called bright “shooting stars.” Some readers sent reports describing fireballs that they have seen. One sent in a stunning photograph that no matter how hard you try, you simply can’t plan on catching with your camera.

John Hacker, editor of The Carthage Press, a Gatehouse newspaper in southwest Missouri, was out taking pictures of lightning on the evening of August 20, 2017.

“I was photographing the lightning when this big green fireball fell right through the middle of my frame — while the shutter was open. That never happens,” Hacker wrote. He added he did not get to travel to see the solar eclipse where it was total the next day, but the fireball picture is his “consolation prize.”

The photo shows lightning near the flat horizon of a field, partly lighting up the clouds. The sky was partly cloudy; stars are visible at top, and so is the streak of the fireball as it descended behind clouds and seen through breaks.

He used a wide angle lens and a 20-second exposure.

Hacker was pursuing his hobby of photographing lightning at the time. He said he has seen fireballs before, but always the camera was pointing a different way.

The American Meteor Society lists three people who reported seeing this event. Hacker described the fireball as green, and bright as magnitude - 6 (brighter than Venus ever gets).

Although we never know when a meteor- let alone a bright fireball - will cross the night sky, we can improve our chances of seeing them at scheduled times of meteor showers. There are some showers that are particularly strong every year, including the Pleiades in early to mid August and the Geminids in mid-December. The most meteors are seen after midnight when most people are sleeping, oblivious to the drama in the sky. This is because the Earth, in its orbit, plows right into incoming meteors, and are best seen on the forward-leading side of the planet, between midnight and sunrise. Some meteors, however, do appear in the evening as they catch up with the Earth hurtling away.

A camera capable of taking time exposures is best for meteor photography. Set it on a tripod and leave the shutter open for at several minutes, pointing at the darkest part of the clear sky. How long you can usefully leave it open depends on how much light pollution you have. Avoid moonlit nights. The stars will appear to move during that time as the Earth spins, leaving trails across the image.

If a meteor happens by, it will usually be seen to intersect these star trails, unless by chance it was moving parallel.

It’s also a good idea to have some kind of shield around the lens- black is best- to reduce dewing and block stray light.

You might also catch a satellite as it crosses the sky; most likely you will catch an airliner if you live anywhere near their flight paths.

On Nov. 11, an email arrived from Jim and Susan Brady of Framingham, Massachusetts. “Your article hit the Metrowest Daily News yesterday,” Jim wrote. “Ironically, my wife and I were driving home in a westward direction at roughly 9:15 last night. We both saw a very bright and relatively large object fall from the sky in the distance somewhere west of Framingham. I called MA State Police about the sighting.”

Paula Roos, of Honesdale, PA, called me before the previous column about what appears to have been a fireball seen in the Scranton area. At about 10 p.m. on October 24, she and her friend were returning from an event and were on I-81 where it enters the Casey Highway which leads back to Honesdale. They were startled by a very bright “falling star” that descended. It appeared as a brilliant disc of light at the end of a long smoke-like trail, vanishing before it went out of their view.

I have been enjoying the night sky for over 50 years, and have rarely seen anything like these sightings. I have seen many wonderful meteors. The most amazing display was in the early morning in November 2001, when the Leonid meteor shower was bursting forth in an extremely rare event with around a hundred falling every hour. Normally very weak, on very rare occasions the Leonids have shocked observers, in some cases with multiple thousands every MINUTE. Many of them are bright fireballs, as was observed in 2001; some lit the ground like a lightning flash.

Most meteors we see are relatively faint; some are like a fairly bright star shooting by with a gray trail that vanishes as quickly. Some are colored. They only add to the constant splendor of the starry sky, which otherwise rarely seems to noticeably alter at a glance, save for the passage of planets and the ever changing phase of the Moon.

See amsmeteors.org for more information.

New Moon is Nov, 18; a crescent Moon will be seen in the sky leading through Thanksgiving.

Keep looking up!

— Peter Becker is Managing Editor at The News Eagle in Hawley, PA. Notes- including your observing reports - are welcome at news@neagle.com. Please mention in what newspaper or web site you read this column.

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